


never knew daylight could be so violent

by shaypotter



Category: A Court of Thorns and Roses Series - Sarah J. Maas
Genre: Drabble, F/M, when this book comes out in January I’m going to drown in content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-26
Updated: 2020-08-26
Packaged: 2021-03-07 02:01:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 540
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26119198
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shaypotter/pseuds/shaypotter
Summary: Azriel muses on Elain’s light.
Relationships: Elain Archeron/Azriel
Comments: 2
Kudos: 36





	never knew daylight could be so violent

Azriel has never been like Cassian and Rhys. They’ve always been drawn toward the light, toward hope, toward a better world. He is willing to support them on their missions, to drag himself from the shadows at their call because they are his brothers and he would sooner _rot_ than abandon them. 

Mor had been more familiar. Darkness was where she’d come from and darkness was where she had returned for safety. His own darkness sings in her presence, demands justice for her wrongs and those who have crossed her. Her pain stokes the dark flames, prodding him toward foolish actions, a desperate love. Maybe it’s just a relief to love something that won’t love him back, that will never burn brightly and singe him.

He had lived in darkness so long he’d claimed it as his own before he ever knew it had chosen him _back_. Mastered it, befriended it, grown to find safety in his nightmare. Eventually, your eyes grow accustomed to the dark. You begin to find comfort in the nothingness, the blackness that swirls and lives in the air between you and the monsters. 

Yet for the first time in his life, he is drawn toward the light. 

She isn’t light — not exactly. He won’t do Elain the disservice the others do, seeing that easy smile and dismiss her as light and sunshine. There is a darkness, a sadness, that rolls through that slender body, a life of loss that couldn’t quite smother her glowing heart. His own darkness recognizes its shape, can see the shadow her light casts against the backdrop of her fury and rage.

She isn’t blazing sunlight. 

But she’s...warmth. She is _good._ Elain is the first touches of dawn hitting the Sidra, the low light illuminating the dark water beneath. It doesn’t burn away the darkness, but it embraces it, wraps its warm tendrils around it and coaxes out the beginnings of shadows. Darkens the color of the water without chasing away the night because the light is so _gentle._

Azriel remembers the first light he’d ever seen. A soft, golden light of the earliest morning rays. That’s what Elain is — hope. Hope for more, hope for faith, hope for...a life. Not just a shadow of one, not just waiting for another darkness to consume his own. 

Hope is the deadliest thing he’s witnessed in hundreds of years, in the dying breath of a male on a battlefield, in the loss and suffering of his people. 

So he ignores the rumbling in his soul, his darkness that is soothed by her gentle light, and watches her work under the cresting sun, flowers and plants grasping at the hem of her gown.

“Azriel,” Elain calls, breaking the silence of the last two hours. Mud is smudged across her cheeks, the hem of her dress covered in stray twigs and dirt as she scans the manor garden for her companion. 

He rises from his spot in the shadows and enters the light because Elain has called, because he can’t deny that siren’s song, because he is soothed just by the way she turns his name into something with meaning.

Her wavering light illuminates him when she smiles and Azriel begins to hope.

**Author's Note:**

> Just really love these two and I’ve got a lot of thoughts but nobody to share them with. From this, we get a stream of thought ramble that made me happy :)


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